Sustainable methods of making transportation fuels, such as hydrocarbon compounds, from renewable resources is becoming increasingly important. Methods of producing fuels from biomass-derived components have been explored, as have methods using other readily-available materials, such as carbohydrates, glycerol, dihydroxyacetone, and the like. Desirable fuels often comprise long hydrocarbon chains, therefore, it often is necessary to extend the carbon chain of the starting materials that are used. Conventional methods to obtain such fuels typically produce mixtures of products having varying chain lengths and therefore exhibit poor selectivity, which can be undesirable for certain applications. Such methods often require elevated temperatures and organic solvents, which can prevent the use of such methods in industrial applications. Other conventional methods require using expensive catalysts that are not capable of promoting reactions with particular compounds, thereby limiting their applicability. Additionally, conventional methods often rely on cellulosic materials or sugars as feedstocks for the reactions used to produce fuels.
There exists a need in the art for a method of producing fuels that utilizes readily available starting materials and feedstocks, low-cost, non-toxic reactants, and that are readily scaled so as to be useful in industry.